Critical Friends: An Effective Guide - wiki Critical Friends: An Effective Practice Guide / Specific guidelines for project teams
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Specific guidelines for project teams

Make sure you fully understand the role of the critical friend

 

Get to know your critical friend

  • You may find it worthwhile taking some time to find out as much as you can about the professional experience and networks of your critical friend. There may well be ways in which those aspects can benefit your project, and if your project is a good one, your critical friend may be eager to use their networks to spread word of your project’s potential and successes. So do ask, and perhaps you will uncover some fantastic opportunities. Yours would not be the first project that has found continuation funding through the help of a critical friend’s network.

 

Keep your critical friend up-to-date

  • Your critical friend is likely to meet you regularly. However, in between meetings all sorts of things may occur that their insights could help you deal with. So try to be in frequent contact with your critical friend and, particularly if you have an ongoing problematic situation, keep them up to date with developments. If nothing else, this ensures that you have a regular opportunity to present your experiences or problem solving efforts in a coherent way and this in itself may help you clarify a problem. Problems can be technical, organisational, financial, political or relate to working with consortium partners, the institution you are based in, your steering group or the funding body you report to. It really does not matter what kind of obstacle you find in your way. If you are aware that an obstacle is slowing you down or undermining the success of the project, your critical friend may be able to help you think about the issues from a fresh perspective that helps to move things forward.

 

Involve your critical friend in project decision-making

  • When addressing a particular matter that the project team or you, are unsure about, do take the opportunity to run through scenarios of what you are planning to do with your critical friend. You will probably find you get a lot of detailed feedback that prepares you for any sticky questions you may be confronted with. It is a bit like a dry-run, and because of a critical friend’s own past involvement in projects, they are likely to have experience of dealing with some difficult angle you had not even thought of.
  • So if you want the best out of your critical friend, ask them what they think your options are instead, and work through the different scenarios with them. That way, you can make the right decision, and one which you can fully ‘own’ when it counts.